Stag Night
by Kelar The Mage
Summary: And then, a stag night like none other occurred. There was hardly any drinking. Or flirting. Or tigers. Instead, there was a lot of talking and an awkward game of truth or dare that involved very few dares. Kel/Dom with mentions of nearly everyone/Kel.


Stag night, as in, bachelor party and all. I don't even remember what during my road trip caused this, but...it happened. It seemed like a fun idea...it amuses me, thankfully.

Not Tamora Pierce, because I'm not that awesome and not a shapeshifter.

Thanks to **Dark Rose of Heaven** for pointing out that I had made a mistake involving Raoul.

* * *

><p>Dom eyed his cousin's smirking friends - and some of his own, smirking, men - from across the table, wary. "You're planning <em>what<em> for my stag night?" he asked.

"Kel's out of commander's quarters for the evening," Raoul announced, walking through the door. He grinned at Dom's stunned expression. "I saw her and her lady friends off for a rousing night of...I think they were going to play with kittens or something." Wolset choked, and Neal pounded his back, raising an eyebrow at Raoul, who rolled his eyes at them. "They were talking about animals, at least," he amended.

"But...we're having my stag night in?" Dom flapped a hand at the area. "What happened to wild nights on the town?" A brooding second later, he added, "Right. No town, hardly any girls, I get it, I get it. Tell me there's at least some drinking or something."

Neal produced a bottle of brandy. "But of course, my good cousin," he said, affecting indignation...right till he began to giggle.

Merric swiped it from him. "Clearly, he's been sampling it," he said, peering inside. "Bad Neal."

"Typical Meathead," Dom sighed.

"What're we going to do with the brandy though?" Esmond asked. "Besides drink it, I mean!"

Owen frowned at the bottle. "There's this one game girls play," he started. At everyone's suspicious looks, he rolled his eyes. "I got dragged into a game of it by Sir Wyldon's daughters. _Anyhow_, it's called Truth or Dare, and it's exactly what it sounds like. If you won't take the dare or tell the truth, you take a drink. And Neal can spell us so we can see if the person's telling the truth or not."

The gleam in Neal's eye when Dom gave the okay was almost enough to make him regret they were going to do this. (Almost). Still, he planned on giving his cousin a run for his money.

Except that no one was choosing dare. Esmond was first, asking Owen his first crush. The boy (young man) tilted his head. "Lalasa," he answered. "Because she could throw Kel."

And so it followed, as others asked the exact same question. The answers varied; Merric had first crushed on Kel, Esmond had once carried a torch for Salma, Seaver had thought Lalasa was the prettiest human on the planet, Neal confessed his once mad love for Daine, and Roald agreed, Wolset mumbled something about some fisherwoman, and Raoul, with a distasteful glance at the liquor, admitted it had been some maid at Naxen who, when no one was watching, enjoyed cleaning with her top off. Dom awkwardly related his crush on the queen, and Faleron grumbled something under his breath that no one could hear and then had to say it louder. Alanna the Lioness took the prize for most unlikely first crush for any of the younger set, certainly.

They lost track of the questions over time, though, surprisingly, Roald wound up the drunkest. Everyone else was a bit too paranoid of what Neal might do to them if they got drunk. At some point, the questions turned to Kel. The first one was "When did you first realize Kel was, you know, a _girl_?" Merric, Neal, Faleron, Wolset, Raoul, Roald, Dom, and Dom's men, had, of course, understood that immediately. Owen laughed slightly. "Not till I was twelve." The others laughed. "I remember that," Neal said, "She looked so mortified when you yelled it out." Seaver and Esmond admitted that they'd known from the start, but had forgotten it by the time they were twelve. "Till she wore that browny-red dress that one night," Seaver added, grinning.

Neal grabbed the bottle and waved it slightly. "Now you're making me curious," he said. "Raise your hand if you've ever had a thing for Kel." His arm remained in the air, as slowly, every man in the room's arm came up, except for Raoul, Wolset, and some of the older men under Dom's command. "And how many of you discovered this the first time you saw her in a dress?" Most of the arms stayed up, though Lerant, Dom, and Merric's came down. "Interesting, interesting," he muttered. "And she always complains that she thinks she looks awful in a dress."

Dom was watching the others with their arms up suspiciously. "Why is it that I'm the one marrying her, and I'm in a room full of people who've wanted in her breeches at one point?"

"Because we got over it?" Merric suggested.

Owen, who had only had one swig (though it had amounted to a quarter of the bottle), was obviously a lightweight. This was made clear by the fact that his next statement slurred slightly. "Heyyy, why don't we talk about liking Kel and all? I coul' start!" He grinned at Dom (well, the wall above Dom's head). "I liked her first when we were fighting the bandiss."

"You're drunk," Neal said dryly. "I discovered I...liked her when she went up Balor's Needle."

Esmond and Seaver traded looks. "That reddy-browny dress," Esmond answered, and Seaver nodded.

Faleron said it was the stable fight, while Roald said it was the Midwinter they had the drawn-out fight with Joren. Merric said it was the first time he saw her. "Remember how angry I got at her for saving me?" he asked. "That's because I wanted her to think I was, you know, really strong and amazing." He chuckled.

Lerant groaned. "I accidentally walked past the Yamani's glaive practice one morning during Midwinter and...yeah." He shook his head. "In my defense, I had a crush on all of them after that."

"Even Kel's mother?" Neal asked.

"...especially Kel's mother..."

The group dissolved into laughter, and no one had noticed that Raoul had slipped away.

"Dooom. You turn," Neal said, before dissolving into giggles again.

"The bandits," he said. "Well, the bandits the first time. The batch that had teamed up with those centaurs." He sighed. "Seeing how she handled the hunting, and the trials..." He shook his head.

"Domitan of Masobelle, are you saying you had a _thing_ for fourteen year old Kel at twenty-three?" Neal asked, pressing a hand to his heart.

"He's a dirty old man, isn't he?" Wolset asked Lerant, who nodded sagely. They dissolved into laughter at his face. "Sorry, Mister New Commander Sir," they chorused, before dying again.

Happily for Dom's sanity, the conversation turned elsewhere, and they soon got drunker, and Neal discovered he had lots of other bottles of brandy. At some point, it dissolved into a pure drinking contest, which, to the surprise of all left semi-awake (not many), Merric won.

As Dom would say the next morning, sipping a hangover cure, "Thank Mithros we're having an afternoon wedding."


End file.
